Plasma miR-200b in ovarian carcinoma patients: Distinct pattern of pre/post-treatment variation compared to CA-125 and potential for prediction of progression-free survival

Ovarian carcinomas (OvCa) are highly heterogeneous malignancies. We investigated four circulating plasma microRNAs (miR-21, miR-34a, miR-200b and miR-205) as candidate biomarkers. Using qPCR, we assessed the plasma concentration of these markers in 101 women, including 51 previously untreated OvCa patients, 25 healthy women and 25 patients bearing benign pelvic lesions. For a subset of 33 OvCa patients, the assay was repeated at the end of the primary treatment. The pattern of variations (post- minus pre-treatment) of concentration was compared to that of CA-125. A Cox regression model was used to study the association between variations and the progression-free survival (PFS). Plasma miR-200b proved to have a greater average concentration in OvCa samples (median 2-^ΔΔCt = 15.18) than in samples linked to non-malignant lesions (median 2-^ΔΔCt = 1.26, p-value = 0.0004). Its concentration was highly heterogeneous among OvCa patients, without any correlations with the FIGO stage and the pre-treatment CA-125 level. The decrease in CA-125 concentration was constant and often dramatic, while the variations of miR-200b concentration were much more diverse. The variation of miR-200b was marginally associated with the PFS (hazard ratio = 2.95 95%CI = [0.94; 9.28], p = 0.06) while miR-200b as a continuous time-dependent variable was significantly associated (HR = 1.06 [1.02; 1.10], p = 0.003). This study is the first direct empirical evidence that miR-200b can provide additional information, independent of CA-125 in OvCa patients.